Attention all DC-3 fans !

[Alan_A]

Wow. Just wow.

Sometimes good things do happen after two o'clock in the morning (my local time, at least).

Eagerly but patiently (but still eagerly) standing by.

[Fireball6]

Thats very good news - looking forward to the upcoming vc - i am sur it will be a masterpiece

Thanks to all involved people for giving us simmers such a great gift!

Dirk

[jankees]

excellent news!

[stansdds]

Good news, indeed!

[txnetcop]

Best news I've heard in a while...thank you Mike and Jan...DOUBLE AWESOME!
Ted

[Mazo]

Great, great news!!

Thanks to all involved for sharing your talents.

Lyn

[cavaricooper]

Jan-

Very true.... Despite your SUPERB CRACKED LEATHER .

Thanks for the communication and even more for "keeping our collective dream alive"... Also- Mike- our heartfelt gratitude for stepping in, and stepping up!

Absolutely fantastic news!

C

[banjoman1960]

thank´s also Mike to jump in..........

[Roger]

Thanks for the update Jan...and thanks to Mike for stepping into the breech

[ramjet]

I want to thank all of you who have been inching this project forward. I have given up on modifying the C-47 v2 with all of the inventive fixes and changes you have concocted. I spent a lot of hours reading and following step by step but I just couldn't make them work and when I re-skinned it wouldn't show up.

I went back to a fresh install and enjoy having the C-47 to fly again and I will just be patient as the vintage VC is created. I don't get much flying time and it sure is more fun than getting nowhere with mods.

good flights, Cal

[Anthin]

Wonderful news indeed.
Anthin.

[Ian Warren]

Superb news Jan, good on you Mike

[robcap]

WOOT, for the continuation of the project, but very sad that Hansi can't continue.

[CanadaKen]

GREAT news for sure....thank you both for starting up the vintage VC!!!

Two things that struck me when I bought P3D....First it looks and performs GREAT and Second....a real lack of oil burning oil dripping multi-engine radial aircraft.
This C-47/DC3 installed beautifully on P3D with the Estonian tool. Love flying it but would like to jump between vintage and modern panels.

We've waited this long what's a few more days. Just kidding....hopefully a New Years present to all of us.

CK

[Anthin]

Ditto to the tenth power. OMG, I am really looking forward to this.

Thank you guys.

Anthin.

[stovall]

Fantastic new, Jan and Mike working together. Couldn't get any better than that. Looking forward to any updates. Thanks!

[iwik]

Thanks so much guys, my beloved c47 with vintage cockpit will no longer be dream
Cheers
Les

[Anthin]

Just a question from a pleb. Will it be relatively easly when then
cockpit is finished to install it? I

I do not think I have looked forward to anything as much as this
project.

Thank you so much,Jan and Mike.

Anthin.

[Alan_A]

Just a question from a pleb. Will it be relatively easy when then
cockpit is finished to install it?

At one point, if I recall correctly, Manfred suggested that when the VVC is finished, he might pull together a v3 release, with the aircraft, the texture basepack, TuFun's soundpack and the new VC all in one package. I don't know if that's still something he's considering, but if he is, it'd be welcome.

With luck, we'll find out before too much longer. Nice to be able to write that!

[huub vink]

Thanks for bringing this great news Jan! And Mike, thank you for stepping in. This VC is definitely something I'm looking forward to.

Cheers,
Huub

[musterpilot]

Fantastic news
Keep up the good work
I wish I had your talents

[Ian Warren]

Explanation for you Jan and Mike why the cowl flaps and controls were missing - takes the confusion out.
While photoing the insides I noticed the cowl flap controls missing, it stumped us both, so 'Barf' at RNZAF Wigram Museum dug up this information.

The outside fix

“All of the DC3s that I flew (P&W R-1830s) had fixed cowls, it was explained to me as a young sprog that -

(1) The variable cowl flap system was unreliable, erratic, and required a lot of maintainance, and
(2) Unnecessary in the Temperate / Tropical conditions in which we operated, with the fixed 'optimised' setting.

The latter was true, we rarely had any CHT problems. Only once did I ever see the use of 'Auto Rich' necessary during cruise, and 6 or 7 times had to resort to 'Emergency Rich' during prolonged climb at high power to 16,000 feet or so to avoid the New Guinea hills. In both cases, use of the Mixture control worked well, and kept the CHTs within limits.

We were obsessive in the use of 'balanced power' (not much less than Holding Power) during descent, and never had any problems with low CHT.

The only twitchy part of the engine controls was the Carby Heat, with only a small tweak of the control resulting in large variations in intake temperature.”

and this one


It is a modification, incidentally never approved by Douglas or P&W. It works well thoughhttp://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/thumbs.gif.

The fixed gill modifications are only approved in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. I have done these conversions to fixed gills and from, ad nauseum. It's quite simple to unbolt the gill assembly and then manufacture 3 fixed sections, fixed at 11 degrees and then rivet them on. There is a cut out on the outboard side to fit around the bulge on the heater inlet cowling and either another cut out at the top to allow the top cowling to fit around the carb air scoops (only when using the ram/non-ram "saddle" airscoops), or a slight extension for the short carb airscoops, so cowl can fit snugly. Some fixed gill conversions have the heater cowling cut out on both sides, so that the cowlings can be interchangeable between left and right engines, and some have little holes in the gills, so that the accessory bay cowlings can be got at without too much stress.

The hydraulic lines are simply blanked with pressure blanks at the firewall and ditto for the selectors in the cockpit. Sometimes, we leave the selectors in the cockpit for show, some owners like this. In practice with the fixed gills in South Africa, we normally get a perfect cruise CHT of 200 deg. In cold conditions, this obviously drops, and in winter conditions cruise CHT can go as low as 160 deg, although this rare and the tendency is pretty much there with the normal gills too. As Old Smokey said, judicious use of "emergency rich" usually brings any high temp issues back into the green, but I've only ever experienced this once. This is bearing in mind that Take-Off CHT is permitted to go as high as 262 deg and cruise is permitted go as high as 232 deg.

It is true that the adjustments on the normal gills can be tedious and they can be a real pig to get aligned as the Maintena nce Manual says, but once ok they work alright, just need looking at every check.

I had a look at the photo archive and found pics of 3551 with the cowl flaps in 1953 but gone by 1959. It appears that all RNZAF Daks were similarly changed

[Bill Kestell]

What a most interesting post to be sure! Thanks

[roger-wilco-66]

Great post, Ian, thanks for sharing that!

Cheers,
Mark

[FentiFlier1]

Just wanted to jump in and say thanks to Mike!

Owen